


After

by paxnirvana



Category: One Piece
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-05
Updated: 2010-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-12 15:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxnirvana/pseuds/paxnirvana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Recovering after the Battle of Arabasta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After

They're lying in the one big, silent, cool room filled with soft beds that Vivi led them too, listening to Luffy's snores and Usopp's wheezes through his broken nose. Exhausted. Wounded. Battered. Improbably victorious. The rain that brought sanity back to this strange place is still falling outside, the sound a low drone in the background.

Sanji's half-sitting up against the stone wall, because lying down with broken ribs is nearly impossible to do. It seems he's tired beyond the ability to sleep. He's been staring at a rust-brown stained ripped-up rag on the floor that was once a shirt for what feels like hours now and wondering where his cigarettes are. For once he can't be bothered to get up and find them; he's not comfortable but he's finally found a position that doesn't stab his side with agony, so moving is unattractive.

Three sheathed swords lean against the wall in the narrow space between the beds. Their owner is lying flat on his back beyond, swathed in bandages from hip to armpit, mouth slack, eyes closed. He's breathing slow and regular, deeply asleep. For a moment, he wonders why he is looking at the swordsman when Nami-san is sleeping at the other end of the room, beyond Luffy. But it was Nami-san who almost got him killed fighting that shitty cross-dressing, shape-changing bastard before, after all.

So, just like his cigarettes, he's not looking at Nami-san, because if he did, he'd have to move. Have to adore and fawn and worship her beauty properly. So he stares at the swordsman and wonders how many more wounds like that the impossibly stubborn bastard can survive. He'd seen the other's chest as Chopper sewed it up and bandaged it; strips of flesh hanging, bone showing, muscle tissue bared -- as if it had been put through a grater. So much blood lost. Zoro had been pale as a ghost when he finally passed out flat on the bed. He has to admit, if only to himself, that the other is tough. Tougher than he is.

But then, he wouldn't let himself get that cut up in the first place, he thinks in disgust. He knows better than to let swordsmen get close.

Except for one swordsman, of course. Because no matter how annoying the bastard can be at times, he's nakama.

Nakama... all of them. Precious and real and each of them more important than his own life.

His fingers twitch, empty. Habit makes him raise his hand to his mouth anyway, but he stops when the broken ribs remind him, with a twinge, that lifting his arm that way still hurts. He sucks a sharp breath in, cutting that off too as his ribs twang again, harder this time, lowered hand clenching tight in the bedding. His throat aches as he silently curses the damn okama's skill in his head, tilting it back against the cool stone wall behind him as he waits for the wave of pain to pass.

"Oi," comes a low murmur from the bed beside him. "Quit moving if it hurts."

He opens his eyes again, closed against the pain, and forces his lips into a sneer. Finds dark eyes are watching him from beneath bunched green eyebrows.

"This is nothing. Go back to sleep, shitty bastard," he hisses back through gritted teeth. There is a brief flash of challenge from the other's eyes. He wonders if he really has the strength for this at the moment; rivalry takes energy, after all.

"It's the stitching up after part I hate the most," the other says mildly instead, gaze steady. "And the healing up."

Taken off guard, he doesn't look away and holds his own gaze level. Not to be undone. "Yeah."

The relative silence hangs between them, punctuated by a distant roll of thunder. There are other things hanging in the air too. Things he shouldn't be thinking about while looking into the other's eyes.

"You lived," he says at last.

"So did you." The smile is small, but there.

He wants a cigarette badly. His fingers twitch, making his arm and side ache more. He wants it more for something to hold right now. A distraction, no matter how mild. And for the dimming screen of smoke that might obscure the brightness he sees in the other's eyes.

It is a brightness he's caught hints of before in those same eyes, and ignored. Or turned into a battle instead. Knowing. Watching. Waiting. Patient as stone and just as enduring. He still doesn't know quite what he thinks of it. It doesn't alarm him or repulse him or disgust him -- he just doesn't know what to do with it. Not from the swordsman. Not from a nakama.

While he muses, the other closes his eyes again and turns his face back up toward the ceiling, an amused twist just visible on his lips.

"Damn, I'm tired." A long sigh follows. "Need more sleep."

It's not quite what he expected the other to say; an admission of weakness. Is it a bluff called, maybe? A new kind of dare? Or just a sign of trust? He frowns slightly, aware of something shifting oddly inside of him. Concern. Relief. Completely out of place, the feelings, but there none the less. Or are they out of place? Nakama, after all.

A hand reaches out. Brushes against his where it lays on the bed beside him. His fingers relax their grip on the bed slowly; Zoro's fingers are cool where they cover his.

"Try not to lose so much blood next time then, shitty bastard," he hears himself say, settling back lower against the wall, the grinding ache in his side somehow a little easier to ignore now.

"Sure," the other answers calmly enough. "If you'll quit getting ribs broken, idiot cook."

"Shithead," he mutters back, but there is no heat in it. He's drifting now, soft blackness dimming his senses, exhaustion overcoming him at last.

"Moron," he hears faintly. Last word. Damn it.

His lips curve, but not down this time, as he finally fades into healing sleep.

\-- end --


End file.
